It's a matter of Love.
Saturday is Valentine's Day, the day for lovers of all kinds, the day romantics wait for and most men dread with a fear that turns their blood to ice and will turn their wallets to dystopian wastelands. Or so they think.
But is it, really?
There is so much angst attached to what is really a very sweet and lovely day, traditionally set aside for showing our love for each other. And it doesn't have to be the romantic love that is fraught with unrealistic expectations or accompanied by a writ of bankruptcy.
Hop over the orange coeur d'amour and let's explore love for a moment. And stop rolling your eyes back there! You know I've got you curious, now!
According to wikipedia...
The feast of St. Valentine of February 14 was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among all those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." As Gelasius implies, nothing was then known about his life.
Sounds like somebody had great PR, but not a lot of paper to back it up!
All that is reliably known of the saint commemorated on February 14 is his name and that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia close to the Milvian bridge to the north of Rome on that day.
Even the Catholic Church is a little hazy on his attributes and certitudes: In
1969 the Roman Catholic Church removed his name from the General Roman Calendar, leaving his liturgical celebration to local calendars.
That hasn't stopped the card, candy and love token makers from cashing in handily on his name and reputation.
Many of the current legends that characterize Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.
There are more than a few Saints Valentine.....
In all, there are about a dozen St. Valentines, plus a pope.
...“Valentinus”—from the Latin word for worthy, strong or powerful—was a popular moniker between the second and eighth centuries A.D., several martyrs over the centuries have carried this name. The official Roman Catholic roster of saints shows about a dozen who were named Valentine or some variation thereof. The most recently beatified Valentine is St. Valentine Berrio-Ochoa, a Spaniard of the Dominican order who traveled to Vietnam, where he served as bishop until his beheading in 1861. Pope John Paul II canonized Berrio-Ochoa in 1988. There was even a Pope Valentine, though little is known about him except that he served a mere 40 days around A.D. 827.
When I was a child, we knew that Valentine's Day was for lovers, even when we didn't know what lovers really were. The legend I was taught was that Saint Valentine had been imprisoned for his faith and that while he was imprisoned, he wrote letters of love and support to his friends. Thus, the original meaning of Valentine's Day was for platonic love....friendship, simple caring for one another. I've always liked that idea rather a lot!
Every year, we all picked out packages of little Valentine's to sign and share with our friends in school, and with our family and friends in the neighbourhood. Everyone got a kick out of the little things, happy to get one from this friend, sad to be missed by that one.
As the years passed, they took on a different meaning, as we lumbered toward puberty and all the doubt, introspection, and pitfalls that entails. What we learned, though, is that friendship is important...even vital...to a good, full life. We also learned that not everyone is going to love us, never mind like us...no matter how much we may wish they did! Got that. Have the tear-stained tee shirt. Survived. And have gone on to love more than a few times, since.
The other thing I learned is that Love...is Love. It doesn't matter if it's for parents, siblings, friends, lovers, children, or pets. That feeling of being important to another living being, and having them know they matter to you...oh, that makes all this other stuff worth doing!
My parents met on Valentine's Day, in one of those odd little flukes of serendipity. They were married the following year on Valentine's Day. The year he died of lung cancer, my Dad was in a rest home yet somehow arranged for my mum to get long-stemmed red roses, as he had every year they were married...one for each year they had been married and, as always, "one to grow on".
"Grow old with me! The best is yet to be."
Robert Browning
That set the bar pretty high for what
I thought Valentine's Day should be. My Dad was what we like to call a "hopeless romantic"...he sang love songs to my mum, he held her hand, he took her to dinner, he told her often that he loved her, he was a gentleman. It was no more complex nor simple as that. He gave her time and attention and treated her well. He told her he loved her.
That is at the heart of romance.
The funny thing is...my Dad never thought of himself as particularly romantic. He just did things he knew my mum liked...including that singing thing. He had a decent voice, even a good one. But it wouldn't have mattered if he croaked like a frog. He knew the songs she loved, and why. He gave her gifts that made her feel feminine, womanly, and loved. She spent so much of her life being our mother, someone else's sister, a good employee, a dutiful parishioner. With him...she was both feminine and womanly.
And I know she did the same for him in return. He wasn't just Dad, or the boss, or the employee, or one of the guys...he was all of those things, and more. But he was the Man and the Gentleman whom she loved with all her heart, independent of the rest of the world. She made him feel like he was ten feet tall and could do no wrong. She got his quirky, brash, Bob Newhart dry sense of humour, could beat him at cards, loved to listen to baseball with him, let him cook in "her" kitchen, made sure he had the towels he liked, set aside from the grubby paws of kids and pets, made his favourite meals as often as possible, and made him feel like he was the only man in the world. For her, I'm sure he was.
And they understood.....
The best type of relationship is one where you're not only in love, but you're each other's best friend, also.
So there's my take on Love and the celebration of Valentine's Day. It is about Love, but it's about
all the love in our lives. For family and friends, for any living creature who makes our lives better, just by being in it.
And where it is about romantic love, it doesn't have to be the road to bankruptcy or some terrifying rite of passage into a realm where the rules are vague and the penalties harsh.
When it's about romantic love, it's about letting the other person know that you remember what they like, that you've paid attention to what they've told you about themselves, and that you care enough to make the effort. No one who loves you will want you to go broke doing it, and no one who loves you will ask for the impossible. If they love you...they know who you really are.
Take a chance this year, and tell your friends and loved ones that you love them. Don't qualify it in any way...just let it be. A simple, "You know I love, you, right?" can make all the difference in the world to someone who is unsure if they are lovable....and that is most of us.
And finally...to The Man who has been quietly in my heart for all these years...I love you, more than words can say.
"I've fallen in love many times...always with you."
Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.
William Shakespeare